


yeah, when you came in, i could breathe again

by butiamhome



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Depression, F/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 14:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2029191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butiamhome/pseuds/butiamhome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The peasant could never move his mouth in the right ways, could not gentle his speech enough to make himself understood. The princess, for her part, could not either. But she heard every word he said. As the peasant distrusted everyone around him, he held onto her. And she listened, and she touched him in ways he could never explain to anyone else. He wanted so desperately to trust, to believe. She sat in confessionals and wished she had half his faith.</p>
<p>---<br/>A story of Mulder and Scully, in bedtime fairy tale mode. Written for my dearest Jo, who finally talked me into posting it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	yeah, when you came in, i could breathe again

Once upon a time there was a peasant who worked in the basement office of a big government castle. He was very lonely, but tried to pretend he wasn’t by constantly investigating things and watching a lot of porn.  
One day, he was visited by a beautiful princess, with a face like the sun come to brighten his very dark night sky. The princess said she’d been assigned to work very closely with him.  
The peasant assumed she would laugh at him like all the others—and she did, but there was a softness to it, and her smiles were like fairy lights he could hang up in the dark corners of his cluttered mind.  
He loved her without asking for anything, knowing only that he did, and that the touch of her hand on his arm or the steady gaze of her eyes into his without fear steadied him more than medication or therapy ever had.  
But the princess had a secret. As brilliant as she was, she slowly began to realize that she cared more for the peasant than she was supposed to. She knew how she was supposed to feel about him—he was Different, had unorthodox methods, was maybe even unhinged, the whispers said. But she saw so much more than that. The sardonic grins, the offhand comments—she knew he was aware of the way others talked about him, and she watched as he tried desperately not to care about it.  
He threw himself into his work with a passion she herself could hardly match—though she loved her job and knew how important it was, she knew the peasant was working for something further, looking for something healing that she knew even she could never give him. But she tried.  
Wordlessly, she tried. She listened. She could not live his past, could not carry those dates—that quest—in the marrow of her bones as he did, but she followed him into the fray regardless. There were times, though, when he broke her heart—not in words, not in actions, but in the quiet moments when she looked at him and felt that he was far away, gone back to a time she could not plunge into at his side.  
In these moments he went where she could not follow, and she feared for him. A steady hand on his arm was the best she could do, but she felt it could never be enough.  
For the peasant, it was more than he ever could have asked of her. He did not know how to fit his mouth around the words, how to say everything he wanted to, to tell her what a simple look meant. But he tried. A joking proposal, a drug-hazy confession, sitting vigil at her bedside when even her family went home. She cried into his shirt more times than any other man could have remembered. But the peasant? He remembered every one.  
The peasant could never move his mouth in the right ways, could not gentle his speech enough to make himself understood. The princess, for her part, could not either. But she heard every word he said. As the peasant distrusted everyone around him, he held onto her. And she listened, and she touched him in ways he could never explain to anyone else. He wanted so desperately to trust, to believe. She sat in confessionals and wished she had half his faith.  
And time passed, and months turned to years, years the peasant had always felt would be his alone—a warm beer, a bowl of cereal with milk nearly gone sour, another night spent on the couch because he could not fathom moving to the bed by himself. He’d bought a king-sized mattress at the store, a mistake he’d regretted since he’d let the return window run out. He could imagine nothing for himself but dying in that bed, the duvet so large he’d lost himself in it. He lost himself many nights on the couch regardless, counting the specks on the ceiling, naming them all after lies he’d been told.  
But the peasant wasn’t alone. Even in the darkest hours, the times when no one was awake but the bodega owner downstairs, the peasant was never alone. On impulse one night, he called the princess at 3 AM. She answered, and the sound of her voice, heavy with sleep, had made him feel both guilty and warm. He apologized, told her to go back to bed, but she said no. She listened. Impulse turned to habit, with the peasant calling her more often than he called his own mother.  
One night he almost didn’t call, almost let himself drown in his own deep sadness.  
When the phone rang, the princess let out a sigh of relief. She would never tell him, but she’d gotten into the habit of falling asleep with the phone next to her on the extra pillow. Tonight she had lain awake, worrying. It was a case with a missing little girl that day, and she’d watched as his eyes turned dangerous. She knew a call was coming. Somehow, she always knew.  
One night she waited for a call that didn’t come. At four thirty, she gave up on sleep, wrapped herself in a coat, and gathered supplies. She met the peasant at his door, a loaf of bread and jar of peanut butter under one arm, a bottle of wine under the other. He had the look of a man who was waiting for death, planning his own funeral.  
She made him toast and opened the wine, sat next to him on the couch and said nothing, just touched him lightly on the arm. He told her the names he’d called his sister as a child. She pulled his head down to her chest and let him cry. They fell asleep like that, lying on the couch. It was not the first time she’d saved his life, and it would not be the last.  
In the morning, he awoke feeling as if he could see the beginning of the rest of his life unfold in her sleeping face. He let her rest, marveling in the idea that such a dynamo of a woman could look so peaceful, that those eyebrows could unfurrow.  
When she woke up, he smiled at her, made some stupid comment. He told her he’d dreamt of all the answers he’d been searching for. She arched an eyebrow, waiting for his punchline. He paused—he would have quipped that her snoring drowned it out, but instead he shrugged and said he didn’t remember any of it.  
The truth is still out there, he said, and she squeezed his hand. She repeated the line he’d said so many times, the mantra on his poster and his tongue at all times. He kissed her, and knew of at least one thing he could truly believe in.


End file.
